God's Sovereignty In My Life - Jeremiah 18:1-17, 19:1-2, 10-14

 

God's Sovereignty In My Life

Jeremiah 18:1-17, 19:1-2, 10-14

Alter Your Course

The captain of the ship looked into the dark night and saw faint lights in the distance. Immediately he told his signalman to send a message: "Alter your course 10 degrees south." Promptly a return message was received: "Alter your course 10 degrees north."

The captain was angered; his command had been ignored. So, he sent a second message: "Alter your course 10 degrees south--I am the captain!" Soon another message was received: "Alter your course 10 degrees north--I am a seaman third class Jones."

Immediately the captain sent a third message, knowing the fear it would evoke: "Alter your course 10 degrees south--I am a battleship." Then the reply came: "Alter your course 10 degrees north--I am a lighthouse."

Sometimes people can be like that captain when it comes to dealing with God. Proud in their rights, autonomy, choices but really just sailing on a sea of delusion, until they collide with an unyielding, unaltering, unstoppable force called the sovereignty of God..

Background

These events probably occurred during the reign of Jehoiakim, the king who burned Jeremiah’s prophetic scrolls. Unlike his father King Josiah, the last good king of Israel, Jehoiakim hated Jeremiah, the word that Jeremiah received from God and like that captain in our introduction was about to wreck himself and Jerusalem into the God’s judgment by the nation of Babylon and their King Nebuchadnezzar.

To warn Israel and the king, God sends Jeremiah to a potter’s house to observe the potter as he works clay into a pot. It is close to one of the last warning God will send. After Jeremiah preaches this message, using the potter and then later a fired hardened pot, he would be beaten by the High priest, placed in stocks and finally arrested and locked in a house as prisoner. Shortly after that Jerusalem is taken by the invading Babylonians, the walls are breached, the gates are burned, the Temple is looted and the king who ruled in Jerusalem after Jehoiakim and his son, Zedekiah is captured and is forced to watch as all his sons are slain and then his eyes are put out and he is led away in chains.

That is yet in the future right now, Jeremiah is still warning the people who live in Jerusalem, that God has sent Babylon to punish the nation for its sins and their only hope is to surrender and turn to God for mercy in the midst of the punishment. Today in our text Jeremiah is sent to watch as a potter turns clay into a vessel.

Sovereign Design - Jeremiah 18:1-7

The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, 2 Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words. 3 Then I went down to the potter's house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. 4 And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it. 5 Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 6 O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel. 7At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it;

God’s Power Over Israel

The potter Jeremiah is watching is a symbol. God is the potter and Israel is the vessel. As Jeremiah watched the potter work, the pot he was throwing on the wheels was marred, something got out of balance, or collapsed, or a fault was found in the clay. When that happened, the potter started over and remade the pot. He would beat it back down to a lump and then begin again to build it up into the vessel he desired it to become.

God then give Jeremiah this message to Israel in s 8-11, Jeremiah 18:8-10 If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. 9 And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; 10 If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.

In this living sermon, we see the sovereignty of God over the Israel and all the nations of the world. God, the Bible tells, us is sovereign. That means that God will exercise His absolute right to do all things according to his own good pleasure.

Daniel the prophet in Babylon tells Nebuchadnezzar the King he will be struck mad and live as an animal by the hand of God so that he might learn who truly is the ruler of all. In Daniel 4:35 we read the understanding of the King after God returns his sanity, “and all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?

God does what He wills, but His will is always just, benevolent and wise. God’s will is always what is best for us and all creation because He is just and loving, our Creator.

Paul says in Romans 11:33-36 O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! 34 For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? 35 Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? 36 For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory forever. Amen.

Shaped by Our Sovereign God

God is Sovereign over the nations and kingdoms of the world and He is also Sovereign over us. God is our omnipotent, omniscient Creator. He made us in His image and when sin entered into the world at Adam’s sin that image was marred. God through Jesus’s substitutionary death upon the cross redeemed us and remade us spiritually. That remaking, that process is called sanctification, it begins at our salvation and it continues throughout our lives and one day it will end with our homegoing to heaven. In the meantime, in our lifetime, the process of God reworking and remaking us, like the potter, goes on. And it is our choice whether God must use harsh and gentle means to shape us into a vessel fit for His service and blessings.

The Shaping by God’s Hands

Shattered - Before the clay can be made into a useful vessel it is just hard dry rock. It must be beaten fine with a hammer so that it can be used. Jeremiah 23:29 Is not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces.

God’s hammer is His Word, our Holy Bible and He uses it to shatter our hard hearts. He shatters our ideas, our plans, our will and turns our rights into dust. He does this to bring us to a place where our lives can then be worked by His gentle, powerful and loving hands.

Sprinkled - The potter then takes that pulverized, dry clay and kneades into it pure, clean water. The water is what brings the clay to life, enabling it to be worked by the potter, made into a vessel of his design.

In us, God takes our old dry life, that has been shattered by His word and then with the water of the Holy Spirit, He brings us to eternal life. John 4:14 But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. Isaiah 44:3 For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring:

Shaped - As the potter spins the pot upon the wheel, his hands are constantly working the clay.  Feeling for hard spots, dry spots or foreign material that has no place in the pot.  If he finds it he either applies more water to get rid of the dry spots or he removes the hard, dry areas they  have no place in the pot and he remove them from the clay. Sometimes the flaw is only on the surface, sometimes it requires probing down into the very core of the clay.  Sometimes it requires the pot to be completely remade in order to be rid of the flaw.

As God works in our life, sin, weakness, fear, stubbornness, jealousy, and all manner of other flaws and weakness will become apparent. God again applies His word and His Holy Spirit as the potter would apply tools and water to soften and work the clay. If in His working of us He finds those things which should not be in us, he removes them. If he finds sinful habits, anger, bitterness, harshness, immorality, laziness, unfaithfulness or anything else that should not be in a vessel fit for God’s service, He begins to work in that area of our life. That flaw or sin, may be near the surface and easily dealt with or it may be deep with our character, but God never stops probing trying to rid His vessels of those things which could make them unfit for Him to use.

2 Timothy 2:20-21 But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonour. 21 If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work.

Sovereign Design - As the potter works upon the wheel, he has in mind what he will make of the clay of the shapeless worthless clay.  It may be a vase, or cup, or a bowl, only the potter knows how he will make the shapeless clay into a vessel or worth and beauty.

As God works in our lives, He also has a plan in mind. Some are being fashioned for one task and some for others. Some are being prepared to go to the furthest ends of the earth, others for service right here. Some are being prepared to lead churches, others to lead families, others to lead friends to Christ, but all are being formed by God’s hands with His purpose in mind.

Ephesians 1:11-12 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: 12 That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.

Ephesians 4:11-13 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;  For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:  Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ

To be what God wants us to be, to be fit for His service, to be used of Him and be blessed by Him, then we must be willing to let God work, and shape us as He sees fit, knowing that He is made us, loved us, saved us and prepared an eternal home for us. He is working out His design for us and it is the best thing I can be.

In God’s word we see God shaping of nations, of history and of his servants. Peter, Andrew, James, and John shaped by God’s from the clay of simple fishermen to His apostles that changed the world by their preaching of the Gospel. Saul the Pharisee and persecutor of the Lord’s church is transformed into Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles.

We see this in modern times as well. Charles Spurgeon was a nominal Congregational church member when he heard the Gospel and God shaped him into one of the most influential Baptist preachers of all time. DL Moody was a successful manufacturer of boots and shoes when God touched his heart and made him into the great evangelist of the 1800s. W A Criswell was a country boy, the son of a cowboy / barber. Saved at 10, he became the pastor of 1st Baptist Church in Dallas and long before Dallas was called America’s team, WA Criswell was America’s pastor.

In God’s sovereign design we have people like Fanny J. Crosby the poverty ridden, blind hymn writer. We have the depressed and suicidal William Cowper who God used to write some of the most touching hymns we still sing. Hymns like “There is a fountain filled with blood” and even helping John Newton a former slaver trader to write “Amazing Grace.” God’s hands were on Oswald Chambers the Baptist preacher and writer who died as a chaplain in WWI. Only his 30s of the flu, he left behind his wife and young daughter. God’s hands were on his wife, Biddy, who took all her notes of her husband’s lessons and sermons and typed them into the devotional book “My Utmost For His Highest.”

Oswald in his writings said this about God’s working and shaping us, “The tendency is strong to say, "O God won't be so stern as to expect me to give up that!" but he will; "He won't expect me to walk in the light so that I have nothing to hide," but he will; "He won't expect me to draw on his grace for everything," but he will. - Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)

Our Creator has a design for the nations, kingdoms and for us and it is the best for all, but included in God’s will is man’s free will. God does not make puppets or robots. He made man in His image and that image included and still includes the ability to choose even against the good and benevolent will of God.

What happens when man chooses to reject the working of God in his life? We read of it in vss 12-17

Sinful Desire - Jeremiah 18:12-17

 And they said, There is no hope: but we will walk after our own devices, and we will everyone do the imagination of his evil heart.

Israel’s Choice

God’s message through Jeremiah is given but Israel, the self-willed, rebellious vessel chooses to ignore the One who made her and go their own way. They give excuses, they say there is no hope. It is too late. Judgment is coming so we might as well sin as much as we can. What difference does it make now?

God’s response is to ask if even the heathen, who never believed in Him, have heard of such a thing. Their rebellion is not only wrong, it is stupidly, foolishly, wickedly wrong. Even the Gentiles would know better.

He asks the question, Jeremiah 18:13-14 Ask ye now among the heathen, who hath heard such things: the virgin of Israel hath done a very horrible thing. 14 Will a man leave the snow of Lebanon which cometh from the rock of the field? or shall the cold flowing waters that come from another place be forsaken?

He reveals the reason why they would be so foolish, worthless idol instead of living God. Jeremiah 18:15 Because my people hath forgotten me, they have burned incense to vanity, and they have caused them to stumble in their ways from the ancient paths, to walk in paths, in a way not cast up

He tells the result. Jeremiah 18:16-17 To make their land desolate, and a perpetual hissing; every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished, and wag his head. 17 I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy; I will shew them the back, and not the face, in the day of their calamity.

Israel chosen by God, shaped and formed into a people, then made a nation by the hand of God, have now chosen His wrath instead of His blessing.

Our Choice

What is explicitly stated as God’s sovereignty in the affairs of this world and Israel, is also applicable on a smaller scale to us. Now, we are not Israel, nor is the church Israel, but God is sovereign in His will even the affairs and choices of our own life.

We can choose our own way. We can choose the rebellion and sin of this world. We can choose to ignore our Creator. That same creator some try to ignore is the One who gave us the ability to make such a foolish, even dangerous choice. Yes, even to the face of God we can say, "I know what's best for me, I will set my own path, I will not listen or care what God may say."

There is a famous poem by William Ernest Henly titled Invictus and it is the rebellious cry of a man against God, his creator.

Out of the night that covers me,
      Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
      For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
      I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
      My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
      Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
      Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
      How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
      I am the captain of my soul.

Yes, he was the captain of his soul while he lived but after he died to his utter shock he found out that he was not the master of his fate. God was sovereign over William Ernest Henley and his poem, shaking a fist in the face of God, didn’t even sound a whisper in flames of hell.

The book of Proverbs 4:12, says, “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Unless he repented William Henly and all those like him realized the full truth of that verse.

Israel found out, King Jehoiakim and his descendants found out, even the mighty King Nebuchadnezzar found out. God is the ruler of all, he only is sovereign, and we can heed His warning and be blessed or we can ignore His word and suffer punishment. No, we are not the masters of our eternal fate, the sovereign God of the universe is.

Sovereign Destruction  - Jeremiah 19:1-2, 10-12

Jeremiah 19:1-2 Thus saith the LORD, Go and get a potter's earthen bottle, and take of the ancients of the people, and of the ancients of the priests; 2 And go forth unto the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the east gate, and proclaim there the words that I shall tell thee,

Jeremiah 19:10-12 Then shalt thou break the bottle in the sight of the men that go with thee, 11 And shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaketh a potter's vessel, that cannot be made whole again: and they shall bury them in Tophet, till there be no place to bury. 12 Thus will I do unto this place, saith the LORD, and to the inhabitants thereof, and even make this city as Tophet:

God Shatters Defiant Israel

Jeremiah again goes to the potter’s house but this time there is a difference. The difference between this trip to the potters house and the first one was the condition of the vessel. In the first trip to the potters house the clay of the clay was soft, pliable, and workable but now it is hardened and will not yield to the potter’s hand. It is beyond shaping, or correcting and God tells Jeremiah, “Break the pot. Shatter it so that it cannot be reassembled.

Then the Lord said, “I break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter's vessel, that cannot be made whole again: and they shall bury them in Tophet, till there be no place to bury. Thus will I do unto this place, saith the LORD, and to the inhabitants thereof, and even make this city as Tophet.”

The valley of Tophet was a place of horrific child sacrifices to the pagan god Moloch. Today he would be the god of Planned Parenthood. Josiah the last good King had destroyed Tophet and then defiled it by digging up and burning the bones of the priests of Moloch.

The valley of Tophet was also called Hinnom and later that became Gehenna during the time of Jesus, it was where the filth and dead animals of the city were cast out and burned. When Jesus warned of the eternal flames of Hell, he used the word Gehenna, the defiled always burning place that marked the worst sin of Israel.

Hard hearts or soft souls?

In our own lives, we need to understand the God the potter never destroys a vessel until it has become too hardened. As long as it is still soft He can continue to rework, reshape and remake it.

The application for us from this passage is that we should examine ourselves and see if we are becoming too hard for God to reshaped us and instead must break us in pieces.

Hardening of a  heart can happen by indifference to God’s leading, by tragedy in this sinful world, or by neglect of God’s Word and God’s house and God’s people.

This morning I’m glad that people are people and not pots. Though some people might fit what my Grandma Minefee used to call crackpots but that is a different illustration and sermon. No, we are not pots, cracked, hardened or otherwise, we are people who have hearts, minds and souls and the Bible tells us that at any time we hear God’s word we can repent and let Him rework our mishappen, broken or hard hearts. Under the touch of God’s grace, the quickening of His word the hardest heart can become soft and yielding again.

It begins with the simplest act of repentance. Listen to Isaiah, 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

In fact Psalms 136 has the undeniable message of mercy over and over. In its 26 verses, 26 times at the end of each verse, the Psalmist shouts out more intensely and emphatically, "His mercy endureth forever."

Psalms 136:1-3 O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. 2 O give thanks unto the God of gods: for his mercy endureth for ever.  3 O give thanks to the Lord of lords: for his mercy endureth for ever.

Conclusion: Will you Yield to God's Will?

God has a plan, a design for you. It is found right here in His Word. Just listen as He tells you His purpose for you. It is the purpose for which we were created. He desires to forgive us, bless us, and spend eternity in the glory, the wonder, the joy and the peace of heaven. He has a design for you to be a growing, loving servant following His call.

It's not too late, God’s mercy endures forever, and He still calls, still reaches out to us. Let us always respond to Him by praying, "God soften my heart, let me feel your Spirit, let me hear your Word, let me grow in your fellowship. Lord, remake me at Your will.  Shape me to be what you want me to be. A vessel that will brings honor and glory to You."

Have Thine Own Way Lord

Adelaide A. Pollard, 1907. Pollard believed the Lord wanted her in Africa as a missionary, but she was unable to raise funds to go. In an uncertain state of mind, she attended a prayer meeting, where she heard an elderly woman pray, “It’s all right, Lord. It doesn’t matter what You bring into our lives, just have Your own way with us.” At home that night, she wrote this hymn.

 Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Thou art the Potter, I am the clay.
Mold me and make me after Thy will,
While I am waiting, yielded and still.

Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Search me and try me, Master, today!
Whiter than snow, Lord, wash me just now,
As in Thy presence humbly I bow.

Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Wounded and weary, help me, I pray!
Power, all power, surely is Thine!
Touch me and heal me, Savior divine.

Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Hold o’er my being absolute sway!
Fill with Thy Spirit ’till all shall see
Christ only, always, living in me.